The psychology of evil | Philip Zimbardo

> the most notable difference between Hacker News and Reddit is that it's impossible to downvote anything on Hacker News. [..] It's an interesting design decision, but ultimately a bad one, in my opinion. That's not true (as the author realized himself). And I don't agree with the author; letting people downvote is unfortunate in my opinion, and a bad design decision. The possibility to downvote encourages misuse. I don't see any reason for the majority of downvotes I come across; mostly it's just other opinions that don't suit a few people; often it's even the correct presentation of the facts that has been downvoted. Most people on HN are anonymous. Downvoting is even more anonymous; there is usually no record from who the downvotes come. If you're interested in the effects of anonymity to people, watch this part of Zimbardo's very interesting lecture: ▶ this video . The anonymity of the web, or the masses, gives these people a power that obviously overwhelms them. There were experiments which demonstrated how it can play out when ordinary people suddenly gain power (see e.g. link ). The possibility to downvote promotes the bad in people. And it is not even necessary. If you like a comment or story for whatever reason, you can upvote. That's already enough to promote popular content, and demote unpopular content. And if a comment violates site rules, it can be flagged. Of course also flagging can be misused (as it is very popular e.g. on Lobsters); this can be mitigated in tha

That's the usual naggers club you can meet all over the web today. And it's getting worse, not better. What these people say is an end in itself to make themselves important and does not help the matter. It undoubtedly has something to do with anonymity. Most people on these forums are anonymous, also the quoted people are obvious fantasy pseudonyms. Downvoting is even more anonymous; there is usually no record from who the downvotes come. If you're interested in the effects of anonymity to people, watch this part of Zimbardo's very interesting lecture: ▶ this video . The anonymity of the web, or the masses, gives these people a power that obviously overwhelms them. There were experiments which demonstrated how it can play out when ordinary people suddenly gain power (see e.g. link ).

Remember Abu Ghraib? there was only ONE guy not ok with what was happening. It usually takes only one man ▶ this video in case of US concentration camps there also was one man link he is still in prison, because ratting on your fellow men is against the law There usually are no 'good cops' either, because doing something in the face of evil marks you as a traitor

> The argument that gets repeated ad nauseum, that things like this are the fault of "a few bad apples", is just plain false. Philip Zimbardo, the architect of the Stanford Prison Experiment and author, more recently, of The Lucifer Effect , argues that it's not "bad apples" that spoil the barrel, but a "bad barrel" that spoils the apples. Here's Zimbardo's TED talk on what makes people do evil: ▶ this video